On The Way Out
by TheWanderingMiko
Summary: She was just waiting for a train...


The bench was hard and cold, it wasn't metal, but it was the kind of wood that had seen so many trouser polishings that it might as well have been metal. The nineteen year old blonde sat in silence, just as she had for the twenty minutes, waiting for the train to take her away from this place. If she were perfectly honest, she had been sitting in silence for far longer than twenty minutes, almost twenty years now she had been just waiting for someone, anyone to notice her, to realize that she was there, sitting alone in her dark corner of the world.

But no one had.

In the end she was just like any other girl, nothing particularly special; nothing that warranted any form of luck to be shown her. She'd been unlucky enough to get a sister that overshadowed her completely, a mother that didn't notice her and a father that noticed her even less if it were possible; all he wanted was for her to be her sister, he even called her by the older girl's name. Whether that was some subconscious way of trying to make her like her sister or not she couldn't have said.

Now, her time in this city was coming to an end and only one, frayed, forgotten string was pulling at her heart in regret. One string, dirtied and darkened from years of abuse and inconsiderate encounters; that tied her to everything she had already decided to leave behind.

Well….perhaps one person noticed her…

"Is this seat taken?" her heart skipped a beat and the blonde woman scooted a little to the side, letting the man that had spoken sit beside her. Then he was there, the one pulling the string attached to her heart, sitting there beside her and smiling in the way that they both knew only meant he was here to try and persuade her to keep in touch. Not to stay, he would never ask that, but he would try to make her write letters. In the end she supposed he would succeed; they would part and he would send her a few letters that she would respond to. As time went on, his replies would be come fewer and further between and eventually they would both just stop the charade.

He couldn't fix this, he just couldn't.

And he couldn't dissuade her. No matter how much it hurt, she wanted to get away.

"I know what you're going to say…" she said softly, hearing him laugh a little at her statement.

"What am I going to say Helga?" he asked, she didn't answer. They both knew why he was here, why didn't he just get on with it so she could say no and catch her train before she actually gave in and changed her mind.

Long moments passed and nothing was said.

"Do you have your ticket?" he asked after a while, the blonde woman glanced at him; a man made out of the boy she'd known all her life. Holding up her ticket instead of verbally answering him she watched as he pulled an almost sad smile.

_Don't do that…_

She thought in desperation.

_Don't actually start feeling bad Arnold…_

"It's not your fault I am leaving…" she said softly, he nodded and looked down. God he still looked like that optimistic nine year old that he had been; except now he looked as though someone had just pissed in his cheerios, and it had been her whom he'd caught squatting over the bowl.

"Look Arnold…" he looked at her and she stopped, after all the mental bracing she'd done to get this far, just one look from him and he'd torn it all down.

She sighed, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"I just need out…I'm no one here; sure I won't be anyone out there either, but at least out there they have a reason not to acknowledge me…" he looked away.

_It's not your fault…so don't take pity on me and ask to write…I wont do it…_

When he said nothing again, she smiled gently, hearing her train pull up to the station.

"Look" she said gently, gathering up her stuff around her and scooting to the edge of the bench so she could stand "I'll send you a letter, you don't have to write me back if you don't want to, but I promise you I will write you when I get to wherever I am going." He smiled, seemingly accepting of her form of a compromise even though no arguments had been made.

"Okay Helga…" he said gently, and with the last fleeting shred of her steeled will, she leaned and kissed his forehead. She loved him, she would always love him; he was the one person that never really believed that she was okay with things. He didn't believe that she was mean, he didn't believe that she didn't care. And that was more than she could have ever asked for. So, as she boarded the train, she told herself that she would keep her promise to him. She would write him…

But she never did…

Author:

Whoo, busy week for me, wrapped up Lie To Me and then posted this new short drabble. So why am I writing this little update at the end? Well I figured you all would like to know why I haven't been updating my other stories. Frankly, my computer crashed and I haven't had the time to write all the chapters over again yet.

I will.

Probably.

But you will just have to wait, wont you?


End file.
